Avatar 2 Gets Underwater Mo-Cap

Producer Jon Landau revealed on Sunday that production of the “Avatar” sequels includes underwater performance capture scenes. Speaking at the NAB Technology Summit on Cinema, Landau said:

“We have kept a team of digital artists on from Avatar in order to test how we can create performance capture underwater. We could simulate water [in computer graphics], but we can’t simulate the actor’s experience, so we are going to capture performance in a tank.

We are looking at [techniques including] what we did before with reflective markers. [Another important task is] how we record reference photography so that as we are going through the editorial process and the postproduction workflow, we can see what the actors did and make sure that the final performance up on screen represents that.

We want to take advantage of the technology that people are putting out there to make the next two movies more engaging and visually tantalizing, and wrap up the story arc of our two main characters.”

The lengthy interview includes Landau’s comments on shooting at high frame rates, native 3D, and security measures on the sequel. Click here for all the key quotes.